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How long would Miles City/Custer County have to wait for a Hazmat Team to arrive for a spill? "
A few hours. Who cares - if the Rescue Department has done their jobs correctly, we won't be here to worry about it. The purpose of the Rescue operation is not to clean up the spill, it is to ensure residents are removed to safety.
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I believe that our City fire department has an agreement with a team in Billings so the answer is 4-5 hours."
This is a pseudo-correct statement. The closest hazmat trailer is in Billings. The Billings Fire Department is trained and maintains the EXPENSIVE continuing education to maintain qualification as
Hazmat Technicians.
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All of Western Industries, Railcar, and Sanjel employees are Hazmat trained."
There is a HUGE difference between a hazmat driver / handler / operator and a technician. You actually have to be certified for certain hazmat cleanup operations, and that is a very expensive certification to maintain.
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Not to mention our Hazmat Trailer that has seen no use."
What hazmat trailer? The State deployed several of the "trailers". They are expensive to maintain. The equipment and sensors have to certified regularly - monthly in some cases. The materials have a shelf-life. The technicians are expensive. The state was planning on putting one of these here, but the community decided they didn't want it here due to the expense.
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It is sure a shame that Miles City can not get along with local citizens. We could have taken the opportunity to have our own Hazmat Team that could respond within the hour."
It is indeed a shame - perhaps you could start by doing a little research before spreading untrue information. Why do we need to respond to a hazmat spill in less than an hour?
I would encourage you to participate in training and programs that will teach you about how incident response works. CERT is always looking for volunteers, and would be a great place to start.
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I tried to talk to Rogers about this and he skirted the issue as that is who we have a contract with. Maybe he should have said, "We don't know who is on the Team in Billings, but they must be better than local people because we don't know them!! Or how about, " They are from a bigger city so they must be better." "
Well, that was constructive

and very unbiased as well!
How specifically did he "skirt" the issue? Actually, not only does he actually know who they are, but their number is on the list. I take offense to your attacking the Chief without foundation, and I'm not inclined to be nice about it. If you're not able to collect factual information and share that data with us in a congruent and consistent format, then I would prefer not to hear it. It would be one thing if he actually said those things, but to create fictitious scenarios from a hap-hazard 30-second encounter in a hallway on the way to a disaster briefing - is quite another thing all together.
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Don't you think that a city or town should be as self sufficient as possible? "
Nope - I sure don't. It needs to be REASONABLE and AFFORDABLE. It's a difficult line, and not always straight. It needs to be reevaluated and adjusted on a constant basis. If that level of preparedness will raise your taxes another 200,000 a year - would you still think that way?
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One thing that Miles City will not tollerate is when a call comes in that children are trapped in a burning building, it should not matter if the building is in the city or the county. We as human beings could care less. Just do everything you can to save them. "
You've not been trained in Rescue, have you? Your catastrophe is NOT my problem, and I will NOT do everything I can to save you. I will take reasonable measures to save you, but in the end - I, or someone else, might make the decision to let you die.
I have a REALLY BIG issue with your statement here. First of all, it is clearly referencing an incident which occurred several years ago. What you obviously don't know - are a lot of facts.
Namely:
Those unfortunate victims were deceased before the call was made to 911.
A Miles City Firefighter actually DID enter that house and try to save those victims. It was a very unwise thing to do. It was an emotional decision that was made contrary to training and command. That rescuer very nearly became a victim himself, and will have permanent injury as a result. Rather that attempt to discredit that department, maybe you should thank them that no one else died too.
At the time, there was no "Mutual Aid" agreement like the one in place now. Had the City entered that structure and resulted in serious injury or death, then we would STILL be paying those lawsuits and claims today. It is a very complicated arrangement - but at the end of the day, liability must be evaluated along with risk. Sometimes, you just cannot attempt the rescue - and until you have been in a position to decide people's lives, you should probably have more respect for the real, honest and heartfelt individuals that have to make those decisions every day.
Finally, partially as a result of that incident, we now have a mutual aid agreement that covers that type of situation.
---> A little bit of research might have stopped you from embarrassing yourself with this nasty attempt to spread hate and discontent about an already past and very sad event.
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Back to the topic , for my Next post - Why the Commissioners have valid concerns about the City's agreement...
[This message has been edited by Eric Brandt (edited 12/23/2007).]